Formulations of hydrocarbon fluids for various uses are continuously being changed due to a variety of concerns. The major concerns warranting reformulations, however, are typically environmental or toxicological. That is, after a hydrocarbon fluid has been formulated for a desired end use, it is often found some time after commercialization that a component of the fluid or the entire fluid itself is no longer acceptable due to new environmental concerns or due to newly gathered data that tends to suggest that some hydrocarbon compound or formulation may be toxic or otherwise unsuitable in certain situations. For example, environmental concerns of contributions to stratospheric ozone depletion using the refrigerant R-12 led to the use of a new refrigerant R-134a. This change in refrigerant also led to completely new ester-containing formulations for use as lubricant fluids with the new R-134a refrigeration systems. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,092, now assigned to Exxon.
Reformulations have been required with regard to solvents for use with photoresists due to concerns of toxicity in photoresist compositions previously containing Cellosolve™ type solvents. Such compositions now tend to use relatively non-toxic ester solvents such as ethyl lactate and n-butyl acetate containing solvents, which are also low in particle formation. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,405,720.
As those of skill in the art readily appreciate, it is not an easy task to reformulate fluid compositions to meet the many performance characteristics that are required for numerous end uses. This is particularly a daunting task when the various alternative chemical compositions are expensive to make or are not available in the volumes needed for commercial use. It is, therefore, a continuing problem to find low cost fluid compositions that can be used to reformulate known hydrocarbon fluid compositions that have been found to now cause environmental or toxicological concerns. It is also a much greater problem to find low cost fluid compositions that can meet the various performance requirements required in numerous end uses.